Racehorse trainer killed himself over wife’s sex texts from jockey
A LEADING racehorse trainer killed himself after ending his marriage because his wife had a relationship with a jockey, an inquest heard.
Richard Woollacott, 40, hanged himself less than a month after telling his wife Kayley that their relationship was over.
Mrs Woollacott told the hearing things had ‘come to a head’ in the last six weeks of his life.
She explained that her husband was ‘not happy’ when she failed to return home after a Christmas party.
‘He asked me why I stayed out and he was not happy and crying and shouting,’ she said. She added that on Christmas Eve her husband had expressed his discontent at text messages sent to her by a member of their staff filled with ‘sexual innuendos and jokes’.
In a statement read out at his inquest at Exeter’s County Hall, Mrs Woollacott said: ‘ This chap wanted something to happen between us.
‘On December 29th he said he wanted to rip my clothes off. Richard was very angry. He said the relationship was over.’
Mr Woollacott’s sister Marie told the hearing that ‘there were difficulties in the relationship’ between Richard and Kayley Woollacott.
‘In 2017 Kayley formed some sort of a relationship with a jockey in his employment,’ she said.
She said her older brother had seen ‘a number of sexualised messages between them and he was hurt and disappointed by this and tried to forgive her’.
He sacked the jockey and she claimed that Mr Woollacott was assured by his wife that ‘whatever had taken place, it was over.’ But he saw further messages on her mobile phone linked to an iPod.
Marie said that her brother felt ‘humiliated’ and it had ‘a significant impact on his wellbeing’ as he suffered with depression.
Two days before his suicide in January 2017, Marie said she heard the married couple arguing at their home in Rose Ash near South Molton, Devon.
Mr Woollacott then went out on the night of January 22 and hanged himself in a barn on his land. He was found by his mother but, despite efforts to save him, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police who went to the tragedy were told that ‘his wife had an affair some time ago and Richard had found messages on her phone’, the coroner heard. The Woollacotts met in 2008 and were both involved in horse training. They married in 2013.
Mrs Woollacott told the coroner: ‘Our relationship was feisty and fun. We got on very well. We both had big personalities and big tempers.’
But as they ‘tried to achieve the same thing’ there was an increase in workload and pressure and she was not happy six months before his death.
She said: ‘I think he knew things had been swept under the carpet.’ She claimed her husband was ‘angry, crying and volatile’ and in the past had said he had ‘nothing to live for and felt so lonely’.
On the day of his death he was ‘very calm’ and when she went back to check on him, she found a typed note saying he loved her and their daughter Bella very much and to be happy’. Assistant coroner Alison Longhorn recorded a suicide conclusion.
She said: ‘Richard had previously suffered depression and was recently estranged from his wife. Very sadly he intended to end his own life.’
Mr Woollacott, Britain’ s champion point-to-point rider in 2010, began training point-to-pointers in 2005 and saddled more than 130 winners.
He enjoyed a breakthrough successes with horses Lalor and Beer Goggles in 2017. Mrs Woollacott continues to train Lalor.
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‘Angry, crying and volatile’